Oxygen
by twillandbonnie
Summary: There were many things that Ginny needed, and she was nearing death. She remembers them. Awful summary, I know. I hope the story is better. Rated T for dark themes and strangling and death and... stuff.


**This is for the prompt ****Focus on a necessity for your character/pairing**

**1: (word) Neighbour  
6: (quote) "People wait around too long for love. I'm happy with all of my lusts" – C JoyBell C  
14: (word) Blind**

* * *

A flash of bright red hair stood out in the dark corridor as a small figure rushed away and around the corner. Going in the other direction was a blonde haired girl with a clinking necklace. On the nearby wall were blood red words reading out, _Dumbledore's Army, Still Recruting_, and Ginny was positive she had gotten away with this unlike last time that ended with a nice round of Crucicatus for her and Neville. Her fingers, she noticed, were still stained red, a dead giveaway if she couldn't wash it away by morning.

The fact that she was so confident this time might have been the reason she was surprised when a pale hand pushed her into the stone wall, a noise of pain escaping her. Brown eyes darted to see cold blue ones staring at her. Completely off instinct, she moved to push the man away, revealing bright red fingertips.

"Knew it," he sneered, obvious disgust in his eyes as he looked down at the smaller girl. "You and your idiotic little friends remain loyal to Potter, to Dumbledore, a dead man." He pushed the palm of his hand harder into her collarbone, but she bit her lip, refusing to cry out and staring back at him defiantly.

"Dumbledore isn't dead, not to us, and not to Harry," she choked out in reply, a rather stupid thing to do honestly. It wouldn't do any good. It wouldn't give anyone any hope when there was no one here to witness it. There was no one here but her and him.

"Harry?" he exclaimed in a high pitched imitation of her voice. He laughed in her face, making tiny drops of spit spew out of his mouth as she shrunk away from it. She was looking up at him, her usually warm eyes as hard as ice. "Where's your precious Harry Potter now? He's run. He _left you all_, Weasley."

She shrieked out, "He did not!" It's what they told her. They said that Harry left, but she knew he didn't, that he would never do that to them. He could never do that to them. Her brother had 'spattergroit' they said. Hermione was in 'hiding' because of the muggleborn legislation was the popular rumor. Harry had 'ran away' from Voldemort, a name she would no longer dare to speak. She was here though- with Neville, someone who was more Harry's friend than her own before now, and Luna, her neighbor and friend who seemed to have grown up quickly.

She was here, trying to fight a war from inside a castle's needed the fight. Ginny Weasley was nothing if not a fighter. She was here trying to protect first years from pain she knew she'd have to feel anyway. She was here trying to bring hope like her brothers had before her. She was here, because she had to be. She wanted to be at home where she could help fight if Death Eaters came calling as they were doing to so many. She wanted to be able to wake up and know if a family member had been killed in the night. She didn't want to be away, trapped inside of a castle that she couldn't escape.

She did what she had to do to stay sane through it all. She fought. She resisted. She took the pain and just tried to smirk at them through it all and laugh it off. Ginny wasn't the girl she had been before. She was stronger, but she was more reckless and more impulsive. She, like Luna, grew up quickly.

She felt the hand snake around her neck, and she shivered and took in a quick breath as it gently closed around her throat. "He did," came in a whisper by her ear, closing around tighter causing her to suddenly gasp for air, her way of getting oxygen restricted now.

"He didn't," she said hoarsely despite the voice in her head that sounded suspiciously like Hermione that it was a silly thing to do.

"He did." She felt the hands close around her throat, strangling her. This wasn't the way she wanted to die. She didn't want to die with no one but her killer to know why, to know how. She didn't want to die this way, slowly and painfully. She wanted to be taken out by a curse, fighting alongside Harry.

She didn't believe in miracles, not anymore. She didn't believe in fairytales, not since her first year, because fairy tales didn't seem so magical anymore. She didn't believe in your life flashing before your eyes when you died.

She was right.

The thought of her life not flashing before her eyes didn't seem to appeal to her, so she decided to remember some things on her own, the things she wanted to remember. Because she needed to.

* * *

She was young with messy hair braided into pigtails and a bright yellow dress thrown on despite her protests. The streets of Diagon Alley were filled with songs and laughter and the sweet smells of candy and sweets, and she followed behind her family through the crowd.

"Three cheers to Harry Potter, the Boy Who Lived!" yelled a large man who seemed to have had a little more than a little firewhiskey. The others around him yelled their agreement, singing to the famous boy who was just a year older than Ginny herself at 4 years old.

She was in love with the idea of the Boy Who Lived, savior of the wizarding world, the famed Harry Potter who did what adults could only dream of. She entertained fantasies of him saving her from a monster and sweeping her off her feet like a princess in the fairy tales much to her twin brothers' enjoyment. Fred and George who were almost eight loved to tease her to her frustration. She was used to it though.

When she was older, she would realize she needed that teasing.

* * *

She gasped for air with no success. "Did you love him? Did you love Potter?" the voice asked, sounding like it was further away than she logically knew it was. Her vision blurred at the edges. She needed air. She needed oxygen. She had to have it to live.

Her vision was going in and out. You go blind before you die from lack of oxygen Hermione told her when she was writing her essay on… on something that she couldn't seem to remember. She wanted to tell him that, _Yes, I bloody loved him, you prick._ But she couldn't seem to make the words form in her mouth despite her earnest efforts and her lips making the shape of the words.

"Well, you know what?" The voice echoed in her head as she tried to blink away the fog. "It isn't real. Love doesn't exist." A laugh echoed in her head as she struggle to fight because, dammit it did exist! She tried to push him away from her frantically. "People wait around too long for love. I'm happy with all of my lusts." He trailed a finger down her cheek, the other still clasped around her throat. His lip curved into a smirk. "You're very pretty, Weasley."

* * *

"You're very pretty, Weasley," came the amused voice of Michael Corner. He was leaning against the wall in the Great Hall, grinning at her from where she stood dripping wet in her fourth year from the twins deciding that pushing her into the lake was a brilliant idea.

She gave him a half smile. "I know I am." She shivered as he gave her a warm hug. She smiled into his chest as she hugged him back, relishing in the warmth. They didn't love each other. They both knew it, but it was fun to entertain the thought, to play pretend. He didn't seem to mind, and she didn't either. He gently kissed her and she smiled as she kissed him back.

She needed to pretend. She needed to believe in love.

* * *

Tears were trailing down her cheeks she noticed, and she felt sleepy. She fought trying to keep her eyes open. She couldn't close them, or she would die.

She had taken it for granted, the air she breathed. She seemed to take so many things for granted until they were taken away from her, and so many things seemed to be taken away from her now.

She looked up at Carrow, and she tried to speak with no avail. She couldn't go out without a sound. She wouldn't end a loud life with a quiet death. I hate you would have been sufficient enough despite the childishness of it. _You're nothing, and you never will be. You can kill me. You can torture me, but it will never make some worth anything. You'll always be nothing._

She couldn't go out quietly.

* * *

She stumbled down to breakfast quietly, bleary eyed and more or less collapsed onto the bench next to Harry. "Good morning," he greeted her with raised eyebrows. He gave a quick kiss on the cheek as he forked a bit of egg on his plate.

"Morning," she said with a little yawn, rubbing her eyes as Hermione set a warm mug in front of her, pushing it towards where she sat. The smell hit her nostrils, and she sighed breathily as she lifted it up to her mouth and took a nice long sip. "Thank you, Hermione." She smiled and held it out to Harry. "Try some," she said, nudging him.

Ron wrinkled his nose at his sister, obvious distaste for the dark drink in her hand. "That's disgusting, Ginny," he commented.

She looked at him innocently as Harry took a sip before pulling back with his face twisted. "Ugh- it's bitter!" he exclaimed in surprise as she took the coffee back.

"She drinks her coffee black," Hermione informed Harry from her cup of tea that was mostly sugar according to Ron.  
Ginny laughed as he told her that he didn't like coffee, and he had no clue how she could drink it. In the middle of his ramblings about coffee, she cut him off with a kiss much to Ron's discomfort. As they broke away, Harry gave her a breathless smile.

"Maybe coffee isn't so bad after all," he commented.

She always said that she needed coffee, that is was necessary to her health.

* * *

"I might let you go if you beg," a low pitched voice hissed quietly as Ginny weakly pushed him away. She wouldn't beg. She would not, could not give in even if she would die because of her pride. Part of her brain, the logical part and the instinctive part, told her to beg so that she could live. Her mind, her lungs were begging for oxygen no matter how she could get it. Her eyes were wide and stared ahead, unseeing. They darted around to try to see something besides vague black figures that were slowly fading as well. His voice seemed part of her brain, the part of her brain that made her, Ginny, said no, that she wouldn't beg him, that she would rather die.

She only hoped that her family and Harry would understand. She hoped that they understood that she fought, but she would never beg.

* * *

"Luna," Ginny said after a moment of silence. She was sitting cross-legged on the other girl's bed that was covered with brightly colored blankets. The blonde looked up at her from where she was making a butterbeer cork necklace. "Do you think we'll have to fight?" It seemed like a childish question, one with an obvious answer. Both she and Luna had fought before not long ago in the Department of Mysteries. It seemed obvious that they would have to again.

"Well," Luna began, putting the necklace down and tucking some hair behind her ear. "I think there will be a fight. Whether we join will be up to us. You don't have to do anything."

She blinked and stared at her for a moment before she nodded quickly. "Yeah, I suppose so. I think I'm going to fight."

Because when she thought of it, she didn't want to fight, she needed to. She couldn't stand the thought of her family going out there into battle like she knew they would and her not being beside them, wand in hand.

She needed the fight.

* * *

"Potter isn't here to save you now, is he?"

She tried to bring up memories of when Harry saved her in her first year. They weren't good memories, but she needed to know that she remembered. She couldn't though. Her vision was black and her brain didn't want to cooperate. It just needed oxygen.

She was shocked when she felt air rush into her lungs. She gasped for it, and Carrow pushed her down to the ground.

* * *

Months later, after the battle was done and through, you could find a Ginny Weasley who thought she might have to get glasses but was able to see once again and a Harry Potter who had never been happier in his life snogging. Ginny needed him, but she pulled away from the kiss. You know why?

_Because she needed oxygen more._

* * *

**_AN: _Thanks for reading! And thank you a million times to MichalK who proofread this for me! Reviews are simply _adored_, and I will try to reply to all of them. If you like this, I have some other stories, light or dark. Love you all.  
**

**_Love, Twill_**


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